Christianity

[Leptomeninges]

Anyone play a game where they switch to Christianity at an early stage of the game?

Just curious as to what your experience was regarding the pros and cons of the switch.

Thinking of playing a campaign where I become Christian at the earliest opportunity just to see how it changes things for me.

[Graphic]

I switched to Christian as Chosokabe as soon as I had the whole island. European cannons and matchlocks are devastating and fun to use. Nanban trade ships rule the seas (cannons). You get an extra trade slot in your home province from the Nanban Quarter.

Cons are: no warrior monks, everyone but Christians hate you.

A note: don't switch when your lands are all Buddhist unless you can afford the garrisons to ride out the storm. It seemed like unrest gets steadily higher until it peaks out at 50/50 Christian/Buddhist, then starts going back down. I was unprepared for it and it was a little frantic trying to keep my provinces in line.

[nafod]

Graphic got it right for the most part.

Pros
-Missionaries and higher level churches cause revolts and general chaos in buddhist held provinces
-Cannons (land and Sea)
-Additional trade value bonuses and trade routes from Nanban ports and quarter

Unnoticeable
-Early access to Matchlocks (fun but meh)
-Diplomatic penalty doesn't alter the game much in my experience

Con
-No warrior monks.
-Need to convert conquested provinces can slow down an advance.

[phred]

I switched during my last Chosokabe campaign after I had Shikoku and most of Kyushu.
I made sure that I had researched the tech that lets you build missions, and also made sure that I had some open building slots for a fast conversion.
Nanban trade ships are awesome. One ship can defeat most any AI fleet.
Seige cannon are very accurate.

[Zim]

I switched as a wholly Buddhist Hojo occupying the center of the island. I was consolidating and working on upgrading farms at the time, and just rode out the unrest. It peaks at about 6 or so to unrest, and most of my provinces could handle it without a lot of extra garrison troops. The few that couldn't were exempted from taxes for a year or two.

Hojo cannons and trade ships have been very fun to play with, as have the matchlocks. The diplomacy hit didn't hurt me much, although it did put more clans closer to the edge once the realm divide hit.

[Zarky]

I think having to convert all provinces you capture is a 2 way street. In my Shimazu campaign I didn't have to declare many wars because I had good missionaries. I captured Settsu (philosophical tradition coastal province next to Kyoto) as my last province before Realm Divide and build large church there. After preparing for RD for a long while, all my neighboring provinces aside from Kyoto were already mostly Christian.

I think the unrest from religion caps at around 7-8 and then lowers little by little until there's just some 10% wrong religion left. This is something to consider when converting later in game.

But Christian campaign was a very rewarding experience, though I should recreate it with more eastern clan at some point.

[RedKnight]

Graphic got it right for the most part.
Pros
-Missionaries and higher level churches cause revolts and general chaos in buddhist held provinces
-Cannons (land and Sea)
-Additional trade value bonuses and trade routes from Nanban ports and quarter
Unnoticeable
-Early access to Matchlocks (fun but meh)
-Diplomatic penalty doesn't alter the game much in my experience
Con
-No warrior monks.
-Need to convert conquested provinces can slow down an advance.

I agree with all this except I think matchlocks are fairly worthless. Said another way, my bow samurai have them panicking by the time they can start shooting. Wouldn't it be real ugly to try to force-take a castle that has archers, with matchlocks? ... but it can be done easily if you have plenty of archers. Why wait to starve them out.

But matchlocks are fun to have in play. Ka-pow!

No one has mentioned how low your generals' loyalty plummets when you first switch... but that's probably because it doesn't seem to matter, at least at Hard level. It's very rare that an enemy metsuke tries to bribe anyone anywhere... and if you lose one general by the worst luck, well, you probably have 5 more, and will be offered another (your 6th) soon.

I don't like monks because they have too little armor (melee) and too few arrows (bow), so... shrug.

If you take your time and have some surplus garrison troops when starting to expand, plus have built up some high-level priests, the shock of conversion is greatly subdued. Put your bishops on the provinces that would otherwise need the most garrison (small fort and/or no happy buildings) and presto, they need 5 less troops. Also, start a feeder system where garrisons move from old (Christian-fied) provinces to new ones. Note that you can move out a unit if the religion dissatisfaction is decreasing; as long as it's 0 at the start of the next turn, it's ok if it's -1 at the end of this turn.